Cultural Dessert

Friday, January 31, 2014

'The Bridge'

31 January 2014Of the
current wave of Scandi-crime TV series I think the Danish/Swedish co-production
‘The Bridge’ (the second series of which comes to its conclusion on BBC4 this
weekend) is my favourite. Despite being very violent and macabre it’s also
incredibly funny. Detective Saga Noren from Malmo County Police is a brilliant
character: her Asperger traits take the quirkiness of Sherlock to another level
but we are never laughing at her condition – she is a sympathetic, strong and
impressive centre to the story. Her professional relationship with her Danish
counterpart, Martin Rohde, is warm and believable and it is really interesting
to see how it has developed in this second series. The writing is clever and
witty, the photography and direction are stunning and the plot is fantastically
convoluted, littered with the corpses of a trawlerful of red herrings. I love
the way we follow the lives of a host of seemingly unconnected characters for
ages before their link to the crimes under investigation is revealed. It is
very tempting to suspect each new character to be the criminal mastermind
behind everything that has happened. I’m very much looking forward to the final
two episodes and the subsequent analysis on Stuart Jeffries excellent series blog
on the Guardian website at: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/series/the-bridge-episode-by-episode

Friday, January 24, 2014

'Traces Of You' by Anoushka Shankar

24 January 2014'Traces
Of You', the new album from Anoushka Shankar, is an intriguing
collaboration with brings together Ravi Shankar's daughters, Anoushka
and Norah Jones, and the British producer Nitin Sawhney. The
resulting mixture of styles is hard to categorise as Anoushka
Shankar's sitar plays alongside Norah Jones' vocals, Nitin Sawhney's
excellent flamenco guitar and a variety of other instruments from
piano to tabla. It's a compelling mix with touches of jazz, Indian
classical music, pop and more. Gentle, attractive, thoughtful and
innovative music.

Friday, January 17, 2014

'Die tote Stadt' by Eirch Korngold

17 January 2014I really
enjoyed listening to the violinist Nicola Benedetti on Desert Island Discs on
BBC Radio 4 this week. She displayed an infectious enthusiasm and inspirational
passion for each of the pieces of music she chose which sent me straight to
Spotify to listen to them at greater length. In particular I was taken with her
love of Korngold, an underrated composer who I have written about here before
(in April 2008 and October 2008). I had not previously listened to his opera Die
tote Stadt (from which Nicola Benedetti chose an aria) but I am now a big fan.
This is lush, romantic music, achingly beautiful, dramatic and tuneful.

Friday, January 10, 2014

'Mark Steel's In Town'

10 January 2014It was great
to see the return of ‘Mark Steel’s In Town’ this week (BBC Radio 4, Wednesdays
at 6.30 pm). As I wrote here in March 2007: “the real test of a stand-up
comedian’s skill is playing a small-town arts centre on a weekday evening”. I
spoke then about a particular young comedian I had seen many years ago at the
arts centre in Grantham: “demonstrating how little she knew her audience she
started to tell a joke set in a nightclub and asked us to name the best
nightclub in Grantham. After several minutes of discussion the audience
concluded it didn’t know of any nightclubs in Grantham and, somewhat
reluctantly, the comedian agreed, as a compromise, to set her joke in a
nightclub in nearby Nottingham.” The excellent Mark Steel (reviewed here in
June 2006 and May 2009) conversely demonstrates the greatest respect for his
audiences by constructing each show in his ‘Mark Steel’s In Town’ series to be
specifically about the relevant town. Undertaking extensive research he creates
30 minutes of material that reflect the idiosyncrasies, prejudices and
peculiarities of each location back to its residents. And then he tests the
results by trying to make an audience of locals laugh about themselves. It’s
invariably incredibly funny but this week’s show, focussing on Glastonbury in
Somerset, was a particularly good one. I can’t remember an episode in which the
audience answered back quite so much, resulting in a splendid argument between
the comedian and the collective voice of Glastonbury. Well worth a listen at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03nt9w6

Friday, January 03, 2014

'Various Pets Alive & Dead' by Marina Lewycka

3 January 2014I've
previously compared the novelist Marina Lewycka to David Lodge and
Anne Tyler (in reviewing 'We Are All Made of Glue' here in January
2011 and ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’ in April
2006). She writes entertaining contemporary comic novels with a
lightness of touch that acts as a Trojan horse for some serious
themes. I really enjoyed Marina Lewycka's latest novel 'Various Pets
Alive & Dead' which deals with the financial crisis of 2008.
Mathematician Serge is a 'quant' (quantitative analyst) at Finance
and Trading Consolidated Alliance at the heart of the London banking
world but his mother, Doro, thinks he is completing his PhD in
Cambridge. Doro still lives in Doncaster where she brought up her
family in a socialist commune. Her daughter Clara is a primary school
teacher who lives in Sheffield. Each chapter is told through the eyes
of one of these three characters. Gradually we piece together their
stories, the history of the commune and the contrast between
political ideals and the pragmatic modern world. Short chapters
create a real pace to the intertwined narratives which builds to some
wonderful comic set pieces as the separate lives of the main
characters come together. There are some mysteries buried in this
family history, not all of which are neatly tied up. 'Various Pets
Alive & Dead' is an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.

About Me

Since September 2005 Robin Simpson has been Chief Executive of Voluntary Arts, which provides a universal voice for approximately 63,000 voluntary arts groups, across the UK and Ireland, involving more than 10 million participants in creative cultural activities. A keen amateur French horn player, Robin is currently a member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra. Robin is a perennial ballroom dancing student, a frequent theatre-goer, an enthusiastic reader of contemporary fiction, an insatiable consumer of classical and world music and a keen blogger at www.culturalplayingfield.org and www.culturaldessert.blogspot.com